1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a raised-letter information processing apparatus and a raised-letter information processing method of processing raised-letter information to be used in embossing raised letters, as well as a program and a storage medium therefor. In this specification, the term “raised letter(s)” is used in the meaning of Braille or Braille points, as compared with “ink characters” which are printed with ink.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, a processing sheet (raised-letter label) is known on which raised letters recognizable by the visually-impaired persons and ink characters (i.e., ordinary printed characters as compared with raided letters) visually recognizable by sighted persons, are arranged on the same processing sheet (tape or the like) in a side-by-side manner (or in an overlapping manner) so that both the visually-impaired persons and the sighted persons can recognize them. Also, a raised-letter information processing apparatus is known that performs ink character printing and raised-letter embossing in parallel and that can produce processing sheets on which they are arranged side by side.
The raised-letter embossing, by its nature of being undergoing embossing processing, must be subjected to a severe restriction on its mechanism or structure, i.e., on its specifications for function maintenance and safety securing, as compared with the ink character printing subjected to printing processing. For example, in the above-described type of apparatus, because a drum or solenoid type embossing means is used, a continuous embossing operation would inhibit the maintenance of normal operation conditions, due to heating caused by frictional heat or Joule heat. This might make it impossible to perform proper embossing conformable to the specifications. As a result, for example, a desired embossing height would be made unattainable. In such a case, it is necessary to properly impose a restriction on the maximum continuous embossing amount, such as the number of “cells” or embossed dots that can be continuously embossed in a proper manner, and to comply with this restriction.
In the above-described type of apparatus, which is configured to input/edit ink characters and then converts them into raised letters, the number of the ink characters and that of raised-letter cells, generally, do not directly correspond to each other. Therefore, even if the maximum continuous embossing amount is predetermined, it has been difficult to give consideration to the restriction on the maximum continuous embossing amount when editing ink characters before actually performing raised-letter embossing.
Even in a setting in which the range of a desired length (definite length and fixed length) is set on the processing sheet to thereby perform sheet processing such as ink character printing within the definite length range, that is, even in a so-called definite length setting, the ink characters allow the adjustment of the character size and the distance between characters, whereas the raised letters do not allow the adjustment of them because of customary specifications (commercially available specifications) or by their nature of being subjected to touch-read. This inevitably imposes a restriction on the maximum number of cells that can be arranged, i.e., the maximum (arrangement) cell number. In this case also, by the same reason as that described above, namely, because of the conversion from ink characters to raised letters, it has been difficult to give consideration to the maximum cell number during editing operation.